olemn
day unto Israel and a day of light unto our Rulers, for immediately we
applied ourselves to perform thy Commands as our duty is. And though
we have heard of many strange things, yet we are courageous, and our
heart is as the heart of a Lion; nor ought we to inquire or reason of
thy doings; for thy works are marvellous and past finding out. And we
are confirmed in our Fidelity without all exception, resigning up our
very souls for the Holiness of thy Name. And now we are come as far as
Damascus, intending shortly to proceed in our journey to Scanderone,
according as thou hast commanded us: that so we may ascend and see the
face of God in light, as the light of the face of the King of life.
And we, servants of thy servants, shall cleanse the dust from thy
feet, beseeching the majesty of thine excellency and glory to
vouchsafe from thy habitation to have a care of us, and help us with
the Force of thy Right Hand of Strength, and shorten our way which is
before us. And we have our eyes towards Jah, Jah, who will make haste
to help us and to save us, that the Children of Iniquity shall not
hurt us; and towards whom our hearts pant and are consumed within us:
who shall give us Talons of Iron to be worthy to stand under the
shadow of thine ass. These are the words of thy Servant of Servants,
who prostrates himself to be trod on by the soles of thy
feet.--NATHAN BENJAMIN."

VIII

But it was at Thessalonica--now known as Salonica--that Sabbatai
gained the greatest following. For Thessalonica was the chief
stronghold of the Cabalah; and though the triangular battlemented
town, sloping down the mountain to the gulf, was in the hands of the
Turks, who had built four fortresses and set up twelve little cannons
against the Corsairs, yet Jews were largely in the ascendant, and
their thirty synagogues dominated the mosques of their masters and the
churches of the Greeks, even as the crowns they received for supplying
the cloths of the Janissaries far exceeded their annual tribute.
Castilians, Portuguese, Italians, they were further recruited by an
influx of students from all parts of the Empire, for here were two
great colleges teaching more than ten thousand scholars. In this
atmosphere of pious warmth Sabbatai found consolation for the apathy
of Constantinople. Not only men were of his devotees now, but women,
and maidens, in all their Eastern fervor, raising their face-veils and
putting off their shrouding _izars_ as they